So, I've decided some firm changes need to be made in my life. Not just for the next year but for the rest of my life (if implemented right). The first has to do with my obsession for spending. I am in no way thrifty...I only hit sales on accident for the most part...and this has become such a part of my life lately that I've begun to see it as a branch of my gluttony. I don't look at the reprocussions of my actions until I've already acted. I don't think about the consequences until they've shot me in the arse. I just go, almost blindly...walking straight into another problem, fiscal usually.

The second thing is to stop talking about marriage. I know that sounds like a wall to toss, being everything a girl (okay, I'll settle for most girls) dreams about from day one, but honestly, I don't see it as part of God's plan for my life. I've never been in a relationship that went farther than talk (only exception perhaps being Nick, and I was more a mentor at any time in that relationship than I was someone he was "relating with"), and I find myself although being completely boy crazy, knowing I'm not meant for marriage. This is a cold slap in the face who spent several years of her youth reading romance novels and spends many of her beginning adult years around married people. All my friends (exception being the ones who are dating) right now are married. How the hell do I explain that I don't think God has it in the cards for me not to get married?

My friends tell me I deserve to get married. If anyone deserves it, I do. Bah...no one deserves marriage, save for God. Marriage is such an honor and even though it's damn hard work, a blessing for those who have it. A partner is a gift from God. I just don't see that as a gift God wants to impart to me. And how do I tell them this is not an utterly hopeless situation ("You'll get married Becki, when you're not looking for it, it'll find you"..."Now that you don't want it, you know it's coming, right?"), but an affirming, permenant one?

I finally told my mom this. Tears welled up in her eyes and she said, "But I don't want you to be alone." Truth be told, I don't want to be either, but I know God has other plans for me in that area. I mean, I still have no doubt whatsoever that I will one day have a family...I just don't believe it will be a family I will have with a spouse. As a matter of fact, and by God's grace, I will not do what my aunt Crystal did. I will not go out and sleep with a man to get pregnant and have a child...and although I love my aunt Crystal and adore Ellie Mae, I will not do that to a child. I will adopt. By God's grace, he's preparing a child somewhere for me, I know it. This is me preparing for her.

For now those two will have to do. I know there are other parts of me that need to be shaped into something different, something better, but this is not their time. Hell, if I make it with these two, that will be an accomplishment.